CFL's and Daylight balanced film making me blue

**Brian Drake** · 15-Dec-2008, 17:25

Hi-

I re did my photo strobes and old tungsten hot lamps to CFL's. They are a series of soft boxes with 5500K 45 watt bulbs. They all have a CRI of 85. I use these to shoot my fine art for reproduction. Many of the whites in the paintings have taken on a blue cast. Yellows turned way too green. I though I solved white balance a decade ago... now I feel like a newbie. I am led to believe it must be the CFL's. I don't have a color temperature meter, or Kelvin meter, but I did use my digital camera as a test. At 5100k it looked pretty good, when I set to around 4100k, the work looked perfect.

I did use Kodak E100vs
You can also see the blue cast in some order on the fuji FP100C45 instants-

Any thoughts on the right CFLs to use? Should I use a filter system? Should I ditch and go back to strobes? I like hot lamps for composition and I love the CFL's, for placing in and around delicate art work, as well as portraits. I would like to find a way to work with them. Your help and comments would be appreciated-

**Bob Salomon** · 15-Dec-2008, 17:33

CRI for critical photography of the entire light (bulb + reflector + diffuser) must be 95 or higher for correct color. Look for a much higher CRI system. Not the CRI of the bulb by itself.

**Bob Salomon** · 15-Dec-2008, 17:34

Since you are in Scottsdale you should go have a talk with Rod at Photomark. Bring the images with you.

**Brian Drake** · 15-Dec-2008, 17:38

Rod had no real thoughts accept to switch to e100g.... Steven thought I should try a CC30M filter.

**Brian Drake** · 15-Dec-2008, 18:02

Bob-
Regarding your CRI comment. I have read about this a few times and even spoke about it at Photomark with Steven and Rod... problem is NO ONE has told me where to find CFL systems with that high of a CRI. Do you have any ideas on this?

Thanks for your help in advance.

**Drew Wiley** · 15-Dec-2008, 20:13

CFL's are still in their adolescence as far as color correction is concerned. It might be awhile yet till there's a serious selection of them. Too many outfits rushing to market just to get on the ground floor of energy-efficiency. It's difficult even to get
published spectrograms right now. I get horrible eyestrain from all CFL's, just like the ghoulish tube fluorescents of former days. But this will all gradually change.

**Bob Salomon** · 16-Dec-2008, 01:48

Originally Posted by Brian Drake

Bob-
Regarding your CRI comment. I have read about this a few times and even spoke about it at Photomark with Steven and Rod... problem is NO ONE has told me where to find CFL systems with that high of a CRI. Do you have any ideas on this?

Thanks for your help in advance.

We have light boxes for viewing film or slides with higher CRIs and we have copy lighting with much higher CRIs but you would have to ask lighting manufacturers what they may have. Since we do have units with Dulux tubes for copying with a CRI of 98+ it is possible for others to have them as well. Just remember that it is the system that has the needed CRI not just the tube.

**Bruce Watson** · 16-Dec-2008, 06:56

Originally Posted by Brian Drake

I re did my photo strobes and old tungsten hot lamps to CFL's. They are a series of soft boxes with 5500K 45 watt bulbs. They all have a CRI of 85. I use these to shoot my fine art for reproduction. Many of the whites in the paintings have taken on a blue cast. Yellows turned way too green. I though I solved white balance a decade ago... now I feel like a newbie.

The problem here is that you aren't using bulbs that conform to the D50 standard, or the D65 standard if that's your preference. It's not just a white balance problem. There's a lot more to light than just the average color temperature and the CRI. Both are important, but there's more to it -- check out the standards for more.

The problem with florescents is that the light you see is made up of just a few wave lengths. It sounds like the ones you are using are giving you just two wave lengths, which would account for the abysmal CRI rating. It would also account for the color shifting you are seeing on film. The painting after all is just reflecting the light you shine on it. If the yellow pigments only see a green or blue light, what you get back is a greenish yellow. What else could you get back?

What you need for the kind of work you do is full spectrum lighting. Most florescents have way too many gaps in the spectrum to be really useful for any type of photography, let alone critical art reproduction.

My advice is use lighting designed for the duty. IOW, go back to the lighting you were using before.

**B.S.Kumar** · 16-Dec-2008, 06:56

All fluorescent lights have "spikes" in the color of light they emit. Accurate filtering is required to reduce this to a large extent, and then further tweak the colors in Photoshop. Minolta Color Meters and Sinar color correction filters can be found cheaply on eBay now. The Alzo HMI lights are used by some Betterlight users as a cheaper alternative to the Northlights. http://alzodigital.com/online_store/..._repro_kit.htm They're not as cheap as CFLs, but significantly cheaper than the Northlights. You might also want to check Videssence and Kino-Flo lights.

Cheers,
Kumar

**Henry Ambrose** · 16-Dec-2008, 09:25

As the last two posts mention, you are experiencing the result of "spikes" in the spectral distribution of the light emitted by your lamps. Do a search for the spectral distribution graphs of the particular lamp you are using. You can usually find these on the lamp manufacturer's website. These documents will contain the real answer about your particular lamp's output and will guide you in selecting another lamp that will satisfy your needs. Its not just the CRI, so don't stop there. Get the complete spectral distribution information.

To correct this I suggest you find a lamp that fits your fixtures that gives a smooth distribution of the visible spectrum that most closely resembles natural daylight.

Alternately you can use slight magenta filtration over the lens to improve things, at least to the point that you can correct in Photoshop. If you choose this route, buy a few different value filters and shoot a test of one subject with varying filtration. Please note that filtration is a work-around and won't solve the problem but will get you closer. It won't make up for the absence of a particular wavelength of light nor will it eliminate the overabundance of a particular wavelength.

I suppose you want a transparency as the final reproduction since you mentioned e100vs. That's the last choice of film I'd make. Kodak EPP or maybe Fuji Astia would be the two best choices available for "natural" color rendition.